SN’s Hall of Fame college basketball writer answers five questions burning on college basketball’s landscape:

1. The two biggest free agents on the market, Andrew Wiggins and Tarik Black, are off the market and at the same school, Kansas. Reassess just where you think the Jayhawks belong in the Top 25 after this haul. Surely not 16th?

DeCourcy: I find it interesting that oddsmakers have moved Kansas to what the English call “second favorite” as the result of Wiggins choosing KU. As much as I admire Wiggins, and I wrote recently that he will be one of the greatest pure athletes in NBA history, it seems a lot to ask for any player to elevate a team that does not have a returning starter to being expected to reach the Final Four.

I’d put KU on the fringe of the top five, given Bill Self’s accomplishments as coach and the talent – however inexperienced it might be – collected on the Jayhawks roster. I’d give KU a great chance to reach the Final Four and an outside shot at a national title. That’s always going to be in reach with a future pro star such as Wiggins in the rotation.

The greatest concerns with the Jayhawks are that they won’t have a true defensive stopper at the back and, more important, that point guard Naadir Tharpe might not have championship stuff. But Wiggins can block shots and Wiggins can make plays, so maybe neither ends up mattering.

2. Speaking of Black, the graduate transfer rule has essentially created free agency for some quality players looking for new homes. Black is the most recent and prominent example. Should players like him even get that chance, when the spirit of the rule calls for any move to be for academic reasons?

DeCourcy: I’ve had this argument with coaches I respect, but there are so few rules in the NCAA handbook that are written to benefit the athletes that I just can’t see a problem with this one giving young men freedom of choice if they meet the standard of earning a degree.

If I’m a basketball player who earns a degree with eligibility still to spend, I’ve got a lot of great options. I can leave to turn professional if I’m gifted enough. If I’m happy with how my career has progressed, I can stay at my current school and either seriously pursue a second major or graduate degree, or I can essentially loaf through the year academically and just play ball. The academic requirements for a graduate can be really slender.

Or, if my career has not progressed well -- and it certainly did not for Black – then I can see if there’s another place where I might be coached differently, where I might be used differently, where the needs of the program might suit what I can provide. If I find the right place, I can transfer and play immediately.

Nearly all of the arguments against the grad transfer rule are made by coaches. Most of those complaints involve bad behavior by coaches – such as tampering -- that results. Is the problem the rule, then, or that coaches behave badly when given the chance?

3. We're heading into summer league season, and you'll soon be scouting some of the nation's top prep players. Who's the best high school talent you ever seen play?

DeCourcy: Because Sonny Vaccaro’s Dapper Dan Roundball Classic brought nearly every great prep talent to Pittsburgh for roughly three decades – I attended each of them from 1976-1992 – I was fortunate enough to see most of the best talents when they still were in high school. I saw Ralph Sampson, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O’Neal. And then I began attending the Nike All-American Camp and its various successors, so I’ve seen most of the best talents since.

The player who topped all of them was Kevin Garnett, who arrived at the Nike Camp not terribly well known and tore the roof off of the RCA Dome for the better part of a week. I saw him again in the Hoop Summit following his senior year, and he was every bit as great. It looked like he might hold the title for a long time. He didn’t even last a decade.

I missed my chance to see LeBron James play at the Five-Star Basketball Camp following his ninth grade year; elite talent scout Tom Konchalski implored me to stick around and see him, but I was in Pittsburgh on a family visit and my hall pass was about to expire. But I was there in New Jersey at Vaccaro’s ABCD Camp when LeBron played as a junior-to-be. I wrote after watching James play one game that it was like “seeing Magic Johnson’s head on Michael Jordan’s body.” One columnist from James’ hometown paper criticized me for overhyping him. I kind of underrated him, because James eventually acquired Karl Malone’s body while retaining Jordan’s athleticism.

I’m pretty sure writers will be calling prospects “the best since LeBron” for decades to come.

4. Mike Rice is reportedly getting anger management help from John Lucas’ Wellness Center in Houston. Does he deserve another shot as a Division I head coach, and will he get one?

DeCourcy: This is a terribly difficult issue. Whether or not Rice deserves another shot is totally up to the 340-some Division I schools individually. It’s not up to them to forgive Rice for his actions; that’s for the players who were affronted. It wouldn’t be say they’d have to overlook what occurred with Rice and Rutgers – which we’ve all seen too many times to count.

It’s more a matter, perhaps, of what they can look past. Schools have looked past NCAA transgressions, active investigations and the whole Larry Eustachy debacle from his Iowa State days, which he later attributed to alcoholism.

In other cases, though, there generally was a significant track record of success that, in the school’s judgment, made hiring that particular coach worth the negative publicity that would result. Rice won at Robert Morris, but he made no real progress in elevating Rutgers: three consecutive losing seasons, never more than a half-dozen Big East victories.

Mike Rice is a good basketball coach. He made two NCAA Tournaments in a row at RMU. There certainly are poorer coaches in Division I. But is Rice bigger than his problems? That video is going to be hard to look past.

5. Be an overbearing parent and send your imaginary son to play ball for any coach in the country. Who do you pick?

DeCourcy: The beauty of this question is that it is entirely theoretical. I do not have a son. I have a cat. A female cat. So I can use this to demonstrate that there is no one specific answer to this question. There are terrific coaches all over the nation, and those terrific coaches are an ideal choice for specific players in specific circumstances.

Is my kid a top-five player with designs on moving quickly to the NBA? The obvious choice is John Calipari at Kentucky. His track record with such prospects is impeccable.

Does my son play best in an uptempo game? He’d love playing for Roy Williams at Carolina. Would he flourish in a family atmosphere with a lasting reach into the future? You know who I’m talking about here: Mike Krzyzewski at Duke.

Is my kid a homebody? I live in Cincinnati, so he could play for either Chris Mack at Xavier or Mick Cronin at Cincinnati, depending on whether he would fit better at a large state school or a small private one. But if I lived in Seattle I’d be comfortable sending my son to play for Lorenzo Romar; if I was in Indianapolis Tom Crean at Indiana or Brad Stevens at Butler would be great choices. If I were back in Pittsburgh, Jamie Dixon would be an excellent choice.

Does my kid need to be pushed in order to achieve? I could send him to Sean Miller at Arizona or Tom Izzo at Michigan State.

The best answer to the question, though, is to say that in the unlikely event I had a son, and in the far more unlikely event he would be a top-100 sort of basketball player, the best thing to do would be to allow him to choose for himself what suits him. Unfortunately, that sort of thing doesn’t happen enough.